A Greek company at the top of Europe

The 2006 Best Workplaces in Europe competition has been successfully concluded. This year's competition has been a real triumph for Greece: the company with the Best Workplace in Europe for the year 2006 is a Greek one - Colgate Palmolive Hellas. Furthermore, five Greek companies in total (Colgate Palmolive Hellas, Piscines Ideales, Genesis Pharma, Wyeth Hellas and Procter & Gamble Hellas) are included in the list with the 100 Best Workplaces in Europe. It is a great honor for ALBA that two out of five Greek companies (Piscines Ideales and Genesis Pharma) are ALBA corporate members.
 
On Wednesday, May 17, 2006, the 100 companies with the Best Workplaces in Europe were awarded in a prestigious event held in Berlin, Germany. The list with the 100 Best Workplaces in Europe has been published in a special supplement of the European edition of the Financial Times on Thursday, May 18, 2006.

The European competition is the continuation of the annual national Best Workplaces competitions that are organized in fifteen European countries. In Greece, the Best Workplaces competition is organized annually since 2003 by the Great Place to Work Hellas Institute with the scientific support of ALBA Graduate Business School. The Best Workplaces competition rewards the companies that show the highest interest for the professional and personal lives of their employees. Employees are called to express their opinions about their workplace by answering a specific questionnaire (which counts for the 2/3 of the final company's grade), while the Human Resources Manager describes the human resources management policies and practices the company follows supported by relevant material (counting for the 1/3 of the final grade). The companies included in the national Best Workplaces lists (20 companies in Greece) are automatically qualified to compete for the European list with the 100 best companies. In total more than 1,000 European companies compete every year to make the final list with the 100 Best Workplaces in Europe.

Some interesting facts about the 100 Best European Workplaces include:

-72% of them subsidy non-work-related training courses.
-86% of them offer some kind of flexible working schedule.
-85% of them offer the option of teleworking to their employees.
-44% of them have job sharing programs.
-32% of them offer sabbatical.
-51% of them offer paid leave for voluntary work.
-The percentage of women in management positions is about equal to the percentage of all women employees in the company.

Furthermore, all the awarded companies have increased the number of their employees by 8,1% during the last year while their staff turnover rate is only 4,7% and the absence rate is 2,6%.

ALBA would like to congratulate the five awarded Greek companies and invite all the Greek companies to participate to the 2007 Best Workplaces competition.